


Begin Again

by fireflyslove



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame fix it, M/M, because this based on RAMPANT speculation, probably not Endgame compliant, technically there's MCD but only for a hot second and he comes right back to life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 18:52:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18555733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflyslove/pseuds/fireflyslove
Summary: It's been sitting there for over a year. Or, Steve died when the Avengers fixed the Snappening, and Bucky's been understandably sad about it. But then hey, Steve's suddenly not dead.





	Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know at this point. 
> 
> insp. by a song lyric "It's been sitting there for over a year" (Can't Shake You-Gloriana)

Even before everything, Bucky had disliked intoxicants. Back then, there were too many things that could go wrong, their neighborhood hadn’t been the most savory, and Steve’s health was never robust enough for Bucky to stop worrying for more than half a minute about his latest cough. After the twentieth century, well, Bucky had had more than enough memory gaps for one lifetime. 

He regretted the choice now, after everything. There’s things he’d like to forget, a lifetime of them. 

(First and foremost, the first thing he had seen when they had suddenly returned from the other dimension, Steve, covered in blood and worse, looking up at him. His eyes lighting up for just a moment before the life slipped out of them)

He’d taken up meditation lately. A lot of it, though it didn’t seem to be helping much. He was up before dawn, the goats weren’t going to feed themselves after all. (And if he hadn’t slept the night before, well, that was no one’s business but his.) Light glinted off metal in the corner, tucked between a chair and the wall. Bucky let his eyes slide over the shield. They had given it to him after the end, and he thought they had expected him to pick it up, to become Captain America. Which, in a different life, maybe he would have. But now, no. Steve had been Captain America. 

It wasn’t  _ all _ he was, of course, but Bucky… couldn’t. No. Sam had offered as well, with an open end on the offer, and Bucky was slowly working his way around to agreeing. He could see why Steve had liked Sam. Bucky genuinely enjoyed the man’s company, but, and he thought Sam knew this, Sam still reminded him too much of Steve.

It had been over a year since their return from… wherever they had gone. Bucky never did get a clear explanation on that. He lived in the same hut in the Wakandan countryside he had occupied before Thanos. The Wakandans gave him the privacy he wanted, though once in a while they sent someone, usually Shuri, to check on him. He knew they were pitying him, but at this point in his existence, he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him. 

After the goats were fed, he found himself on the ridge just above the hut, facing east as the sun’s rays just began to peek over the distant mountains. The pearly grey of predawn quickly retreated to the west, and Bucky closed his eyes, letting the warmth wash over his face. It was a matter of a few seconds to switch his mind into the space he occupied during meditation. It wasn’t a trance, but it allowed him to shut out at least the most pressing matters on his mind for a few moments.

He trailed his fingers through the waist-high grass and let his mind float to wherever it wanted. If he was lucky, and usually he wasn’t, sometimes it would dredge up a long-lost memory. Even then these were usually fragments, but they were from before everything. After, well, after the fall from the train, everything was in stark relief, things they had tried to erase that had come back in the last five years. In the two years between Azzano and the train, he remembered it all, but not with the same sharp clarity as after the train. Before Azzano though. Before Azzano, his  life was only remembered in brief fragments, most of them no more than a sound or a scent. 

Something flickered across his mind, but it was gone before he could grasp it. That happened more often than he liked, but chasing it never amounted to anything, so he just let it go. It would come back in time. 

He opened his eyes and turned back to the hut. Movement in the far distance caught his attention, and he squinted to see a human figure moving toward the hut from the general direction of civilization. They were too far away for Bucky to make out their identity, only that it was not Shuri. This person was taller, and seemed to move with an unsteady gait. Bucky hurried back to the hut. It was highly unlikely someone who meant to harm him would make it into Wakanda, never mind this far, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. 

He arranged himself in a chair at the table, a handgun on the top within easy reach. The person approached the door, and Bucky heard the sound of a shuddering breath being drawn in before  a quick rap on the wood. 

“Come in,” he said. 

The door opened to reveal a dark, hooded figure limned in the bright light of dawn. They stepped in, and pushed their hood back. 

Bucky was hard to surprise these days, but he reached reflexively for the gun when the hooded garment dropped off Steve’s shoulders. 

“ _ You’re not real _ ,” Bucky whispered. He couldn’t be real, this had to be his mind playing tricks on him. 

Steve didn’t say anything, just dropped to his knees at Bucky’s feet and buried his face in his hands. Bucky reached forward with his flesh hand, the appendage shaking, and put his palm flat on the top of Steve’s head. If this was an illusion or a hallucination, it felt real. He tunneled his fingers into the blond locks, and Steve leaned into his hand.

“How?” Bucky asked. 

“Does it matter right now?” Steve replied. 

He had a point. “No,” Bucky said. 

Steve looked up at him, blue eyes bright against tear-swollen redness. His face was gaunt in a way Bucky hadn’t seen it since the 30s. “It’s been so long,” Steve said. 

It had been more than two years since they had been in the same time and place for more than an instant, and for the one exception, Steve had actually died. But more than that, it had been decades. Bucky was struck with a sudden urge, and he pulled Steve up and up and up until they were both standing. He gave a gentle push on Steve’s shoulders, and Steve went willingly back against the wall. Bucky braced one hand over Steve’s shoulder, and the other cupped the back of his head. Steve’s hands fluttered up to grip Bucky’s shoulders in a grasp that would bruises on his right and probably require recalibration of his left. He leaned forward to touch their foreheads together, and Steve’s breath shuddered. Bucky shifted, just a few degrees, and pressed their lips together. Steve groaned softly, and Bucky buried his other hand in Steve’s hair. A brief moment of hesitation quickly gave way to heat, and when Steve’s knees buckled, Bucky automatically slotted his thigh between Steve’s. 

The contact jarred Steve and his head slipped to the side, to Bucky’s shoulder. Never one to pass up an opportunity, he buried his face in Bucky’s neck, Bucky’s hair covering his face. 

Bucky was pleasantly surprised to find Steve’s cock was interested in the proceedings, and he shifted his weight just a tiny bit. Steve made a delicious noise just below his ear, and Bucky’s own knees threatened to collapse. But what good was super soldier serum if it couldn’t support him through the miraculous return from the dead by the love of his life. He pulled his right hand from Steve’s back and slid it between them. 

“You all right, darling?” Bucky asked. Steve didn’t say anything, but nodded against Bucky’s shoulder. “That’s right. I’m gonna make you feel good. You have to be real to feel good, right?”

“ _ Please _ ,” Steve said. 

Bucky slid a hand into Steve’s pants and found him hard and ready. He knew neither of them was going to last long, but that didn’t mean he was going to half-ass this. He briefly removed his hand to lick the palm and then returned it. Steve had latched onto the side of his neck, and he was going to have a spectacular bruise, but that didn’t really matter. 

He began to move his hand, slowly at first, then more quickly as Steve’s hips stuttered with aborted jerks. The entire situation had him on edge, and he didn’t even realize he was following his hand’s movements with his hips until a bolt of pleasure shot up his spine. 

In response, he shifted his other hand, grasping the back of Steve’s hair and moving his head back against the wall, where he pinned it with his lips. Steve’s hands scrabbled up and down Bucky’s back searching for something to grab onto. Bucky could feel his orgasm building, just out of reach, and he shifted Steve’s head a few degrees to the right, and buried his teeth in Steve’s shoulder. Steve was going to have a spectacular bruise to match Bucky’s hickey, but the contact set him off, and Bucky followed seconds after. 

It didn’t surprise Bucky either that Steve briefly blacked out after coming. He gently removed his hand from Steve’s pants, and tugged the now-ruined garments off. It seemed silly to leave the rest on, so he took Steve’s shirt off too, and lowered the other man into his bed before stripping off his own clothes, wiping them both down quicky, and sliding in beside Steve.

Steve was just coming to when Bucky wrapped him in his arms.

“Do you think I’m real now?” he asked softly.

Bucky kissed the top of his head, “I do.” 

“Good,” Steve said, and a yawn split his face. “Do you mind?...”

“Go to sleep, darling. I’ll be here when you wake up,” Bucky said. Within moments, the tight lines of Steve’s frame had relaxed into sleep. Bucky felt the call himself, and well, it wasn’t the worst idea.

Besides. 

Steve would be there when he woke up. 

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found everywhere goats graze @fireflyslove


End file.
